


Pep talk

by SmileDesu



Category: New Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 05:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6840241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmileDesu/pseuds/SmileDesu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been quite a wild ride since AIM's New Avengers formed, and Songbird is concerned about certain members getting too much heat - and maybe not being able to handle it. Who knows, though - they just might surprise her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pep talk

It wasn't that long ago that Teddy wondered why Billy was acting so distant from him. Having returned safely from being hijacked by his extended family, as they put it, Teddy was looking for some R&R with his boyfriend, only to find Billy acting increasingly unlike himself.   
His eyes changed first, the biggest change, too - the warm spheres whose depths Teddy loved to drown in were sealed, hiding some secret within them. The lips followed closely behind, fond smiles turning colder until they were distant smirks, matching the overall snarls that twisted the handsome features. Teddy told himself at the time that it was stress that made Billy act this strangely, and him - to see things. He _was_ going to ask about that, if only because the lack of physical skinship was rapidly bringing him to the breaking point. As it turned out,  the sooner - the better, given how Billy was apparently ready to let people die, and to smile as he did so. Stress alone couldn't account for that - there had to have been something else to make the guy Teddy loved and knew so well act so off.  
  
Ah, but that _wasn't_ Billy, they knew now, thanks to the Avengers of the year 20xx. That was some Cthulhu-wannabe son-of-a-squid trying to take his partner's place. Billy himself was mercifully back now, and currently hunched over his desk in their shared room on Avengers Island. The laptop sounded off a string of Disney tracks, most of which had the mage singing along to as he went over his reference material for class. There was something not quite childish, but certainly innocent, to the enjoyment evident on his face, even with the occasional frown and swear word he uttered at a particularly confusing paragraph he had to struggle with. That was Billy alright, the biggest dork Teddy's ever met, who could spit demons out at will - he just needed someone to point out they were there.  And lord, did Teddy miss him, the lost prince realized, and promptly proceeded to walk up to his partner and hug him from behind, much to Billy's chagrin. He's missed him so much...  
  
"Why, hello to you too, Ted," Billy purred and leaned back, hand trailing over Teddy's arm over his chest. "Come to help me procrastinate?"  
  
"I think you're doing a good enough job of that on your own, actually," Teddy smirked as Billy hurried to minimize his browser window, displaying non-study-related content. The playful air was brief, however, and Teddy wore a longing look as he stared at the top of Billy's head.  
  
"Besides... I have to go."  
  
Teddy's college-mates had set a social get-together, and given Billy knew Teddy had already agreed to attend, refused to let him change his mind.   
  
"Oh, don't give me that, it'll be good for you," Billy insisted and pushed himself up to wrap his arms around Teddy's waist. He was hugged around the shoulders in return. "Some time away, a change of scenery and pace, fresh air... a chance to miss me--"  
  
The way Teddy's hold tightened startled the mage into silence.  
  
"I think I've already missed you enough for several lifetimes."   
It was true, and Billy knew it. Between the superhero civil war in which Billy was taken captive, and his affair with the window, they've already lost several months even before taking into account their parting while dancing to Loki's tune, and this most recent disaster, where Billy was as good as absent despite being physically present - the perks of being possessed.   
Seeing just how horribly that certain tease backfired, Billy poked Teddy's nose with his own and remained still when Teddy pressed their foreheads together. Talk about putting his foot in his mouth; it was enough to make him reconsider sending Teddy away, but Teddy, apparently, wouldn't hear of it.  
  
"The rest of it... you're not wrong about, no," Teddy relented finally before eyeing Billy's computer. "And you _could_ use some less distractions, actually get some work done."  
  
"Yeah, I... yeah," Billy sighed in defeat when Teddy pulled away, his now unused hands moving to rest in his back pockets. Teddy had an equally awkward air about him, but thankfully had some last minute preparations to take care of. Patting himself over to make sure he had everything, Teddy then pursed his lips and nodded at Billy.  
  
"Well, then. I'll be off."  
  
Billy nodded back, only to decide that as bad as they were at being apart, this was no way to send Teddy off, especially given the odd atmosphere that hung about stil.  
"Hey-" he called out, making Teddy turn around at the door. Billy joined him quickly, his hand finding itself on Teddy's cheek. He waited until that look of comprehension crossed Teddy's face before Billy leaned in, lips meeting Teddy's. "I love you" was whispered before they pulled away too far, not that Teddy let them, his hand on Billy's side before long.   
  
"You're not exactly making this easier for me."  
  
Billy rolled his eyes in a typical manner, one Teddy was well familiar with, before  grinning.  
"Consider it incentive to not be gone too long."  
  
"Cute," came the curt reply. Teddy's free hand found Billy's cheek and he leaned in for another kiss. "I love you too," he finally returned and poked Billy's nose with his thumb. Billy proceeded to scrunch and wiggle aforementioned nose, then gave Teddy a playful push towards the door.  
  
"Just go, I miss you already."  
  
Teddy blew him a kiss with each hand, then finally walked back far enough for the room's electronic door to slide shut. Billy let out a heavy sigh, but forced himself to recover. He _did_ have an assignment to finish, then maybe clean the room after - the place was a mess, then shower, then... hop to the mainland for dinner or just go to the food court? Or--  
  
A digital sound indicated someone just rang his doorbell, making Billy jump. Did Teddy forget something? No, the door's lock was biometric, he'd have just walked in. A moment's pause, then the sound repeated, snapping Billy out of his thoughts. He pressed the button on the small panel by the door and the thing's screen came to life, showing an image of who was on the other side. It was the New Avengers' field leader, Melissa Gold, aka Songbird. Billy still caught himself on occasion in denial over working with someone of her experience, but he knew now wasn't the time for that. He took a deep breath, and with a press of another button, the door slid open, letting the two see each other in person.  
  
"Songbird?" he greeted uncertainly.  
  
"Wiccan," the veteran warrior greeted back before shaking her head. "Billy. Is this a bad time?"  
  
"N-no, come oooooooon second thought--" he corrected, seeing the state of the room. Bags and books scattered, a half-open closet revealing a mess threatening to spill out, their clothes from earlier, still where they left them on the floor. Seeing her charge react in this manner, expression a mask of awkwardness and anxiety painting rapidly redder, Melissa let out a small huff, a fond, exasperated smile on her lips.  
  
"It doesn't have to be here."  
  
"In that case!" Billy's shoes took to the air from their hiding place by the bed, and the next moment were on his feet. Phone, wallet, such necessities were quickly collected, and then Billy followed Melissa down the hall and out of the residential building, all the while holding onto that amusing embarrassment for as long as he could before anxiety finally settled in.  
  
–  
  
The two walked in silence for a while, Melissa ever looking ahead while Billy's gaze wandered, going from the road ahead to the scenery to his traveling companion, who for the most part kept to herself. That really wasn't doing Billy's nerves any favors, to put it mildly.   
  
"So, uh--"  
  
"Here will do," Melissa said suddenly, drawing Billy's attention to a bench by the side of the road. It was in the shade of a large tree, and two squirrels ran up its trunk.  
  
"Kind of hard to imagine this place is the headquarters of an ex-evil organization."  
  
"That's the point," the woman smirked and took her seat at one end of the bench. Billy sat opposite her and wondered silently if she'd keep him hanging for much longer. Mercifully, that wasn't the case.  
  
"How are you holding up, Billy?"  
  
The question made Billy blink, but still he did his best to answer. "Alright, I suppose? I mean, I probably have more coffee than blood in me these days, but college _or_ superheroics would do that, let alone both."  
  
"Ah, to be young again," she teased, smiling brightly at his quirked brow. It faded before long when her next question came, one that left Billy quite unsettled.  
"Have there been any... _complications_?"  
  
"Compli--- _oh_. You mean--" Rather than ask verbally, Billy held the back of his hand against his mouth and wiggled his fingers.  
  
"Never do that again."  
  
"Yeah, that's what Ted said, too," Billy snickered briefly before deflating. He leaned forward, forearms on his knees and hands holding onto each other. In a way, it was a relief to finally know for certain what this was about. Not that knowing made it any easier to talk or even think about.  
"I'm not ruling out some of my exhaustion being from that. Having a _parasite_ in me, it's expected it would be at least _somewhat_ draining, right?" He rubbed his hands together and pursed his lips, anxious habits the older hero found to be more than understandable. Billy leaned back then, a pondering look in his eyes.  
"The only voices in my head are my own, now. For better or worse."  
  
"Not that you'd tell me if they weren't--" The statement was harsh, and stood in complete contrast to the look she gave him, one oddly compassionate. "But as you didn't let anyone plunge to their deaths last mission, I'll believe it."  
  
It wasn't quite happiness she felt when he winced in recollection of that incident, but approval and no small amount of relief.  
  
"That... I'm _so_ lucky Teddy was there."  
  
"A sentiment we all share regarding this entire misadventure," she added, arms crossed. He chuckled nervously back, hand at his nape before he let it drop to his lap, gaze moving upward.   
  
"So, what? Is this a post-possession check-up chat? Or an evaluation?"  
  
"It has a bit of that in it, I won't lie."  
  
"What's the rest, then?"  
  
Melissa looked at him, lips parted to speak, yet a sigh replaced the words. Rising to her feet, she took three measured steps before turning around. Billy looked away with a snort.  
  
"Oh, this isn't good," Billy muttered, a nervous quip Melissa chose not to respond to. Instead, she took a stabilizing breath. Billy wasn't the only one this conversation was hard on, it seemed.  
  
"I wanted to apologize."  
  
"You _what_ now?" The mage blinked, seeming perplexed by what was taking place. Knowing he was still paying attention, however, Melissa continued.   
  
"I'm the field leader of this team. Anything that happens off-site, and a lot of what happens on-site, is my responsibility. My fault. It was on-site that the Knights of the Infinite kidnapped you and Teddy, and brought you to Moridun. We caught up, but we were too late - you were still compromised. This is all on me."  
  
The look Billy was giving her was, quite frankly, priceless. It started with confusion, moved to disbelief, like it was some sort of an elaborate joke he wasn't getting, and finally settled on unbridled terror when he realized she was being serious.   
  
"Let me get this straight-" he started, one hand held up at shoulder level, a look of disdain now twisting his face. "You're apologizing, basically, for a series of events that happened when you weren't even there?" He stalled but a moment, not enough to let her reply. "You weren't there when the Knights showed up, or when Moridun got at me. Then I have to wonder how much of a difference you would've made even if you were there, and _then_ I remember - you're the first person to know this, leading to the logical conclusion that this conversation makes no sense whatsoever," Billy concluded, looking at his would-be superior suspiciously.  
  
"Billy..." she tried, he had to give her that, but he wasn't having any of that.  
  
"No, c'mon. What is this _really_ about, Songbird?"   
  
Melissa swallowed an answer that would've no doubt only earned more objections. Instead, she crossed her arms and weighed her words, a thoughtful frown on her face. Finally she sighed, looking at him with uncertainty.   
  
"Do you regret joining this team?"  
  
Whatever he was expecting her to say - that was not it. Billy quirked a brow, waited for there to be more, and when there wasn't, answered simply enough.  
"No."  
His other brow climbed up his forehead as well. "Should I?"  
  
"That's really up to you--"  
  
"But here we are, having this conversation, regardless."  
  
Eyes closed, Melissa pinched her nose, frustrated not with him - he had the right of it, after all. Ah, it never was this hard with the Thunderbolts... well, hard _like this_ , at any rate.  
After a long moment, she finally had enough of an idea of what to say that she said it, and to hell with it all.  
  
"Roberto recruited you and Teddy after a very long hiatus, one supporting certain reports that your... _roadtrip_ over a year ago wasn't embarked on willingly."  
  
Billy was regretting this conversation now, going by the looks of him, but said nothing, so Melissa braved on.  
  
"You two weren't exactly active before _that_ , either, after the incident with the X-Men and Dr. Doom--"  
  
"And then we join this team and all hell breaks loose... is that it?" Whether it was to help her along or just steer the conversation away from the specifics of those painful events didn't really matter. Melissa nodded in agreement and let her gaze follow two squirrels scurrying through the grass.   
  
"I was the one who gave Roberto the all-green on his list of recruits. Everything that happens as a result of you joining is on me, and I'll be honest - sometimes, I wonder if you two weren't better off on your own."  
  
Billy no longer seemed as disbelieving, but he still took his time to answer. One hand in his pocket, he used the other to scratch the side of his nose before pocketing it as well.  
  
"Are you... kicking us out? Kicking _me_ out?"  
  
She winced. "No one has any complaints about your performance, and you didn't put anyone in needless danger... willingly."  
The addition was necessary, though wince-inducing just the same.  
"You're the ones who decided to join. So long as you don't change your mind, you can stay."  
  
Billy nodded before puffing his cheeks. He kept shifting his weight back and forth before nodding once more in a concluding manner.   
"Ok. There're at least two things you're not wrong about."  
  
"That's a _start_ ," Melissa said, trying to sound amused; he knew better. Another shift back and forth, and Billy finally continued, although he wasn't looking at her.  
  
"So... I can sort of see these... thoughts, these _memories_ Moridun left behind - still me, I swear, just--"  
  
"Go on," Melissa encouraged. This _was_ worrisome, but seeing how things were no longer bad enough to warrant a time traveler from the future to travel back to fix them, she was more concerned with the specifics of whatever the damned squid left behind.  
Billy inhaled, exhaled heavily, then waved a hand about.   
  
"He found out about Teddy and me from the Maker."  
  
The news were met with silence as the familiar frown rose to Melissa's face. She was weighing the meaning of that, and coming up with disturbing notions. Before she could reach any solid conclusion, however--  
  
"I don't think he deliberately sent Moridun after us or anything," Billy admitted and scrunched his nose. "He just picked us up in the Maker's thoughts. But... it's like you said - maybe if we weren't on the team that's such a pain in the Maker's neck--"  
  
"He wouldn't have been thinking about you when Moridun came to him."  
There was very little satisfaction in ultimately being told she was right, but it didn't seem like Billy was going to let her enjoy even that.  
  
"Of course-" the mage continued, voice now carrying a certain edge to it that left his companion uncertain and uneasy. "He could've _still_ seen us, regardless. After all, _who_ knows what goes through the Maker's head, right? Maybe he'd have thought of us, whether or not we were on the team. And if not Moridun and the Maker? Trust me, _someone_ or some _thing_ else would've come after us."  
  
"Cut to the chase, Billy." He knew she knew what he was getting at, but if she made him go that far, he'd be damned to do less than go the whole nine yards.  
  
"Way back when, right after we started as Young Avengers, we actually disbanded. No more team. You know what happened? The frigging _Super Skrull_ came for Teddy, and with him, both Skrull _and_ Kree forces, which resulted in the death of Teddy's mom and almost another war right here on Earth. That so called 'roadtrip' we truly didn't decide to go on? _Loki_ \-- ok? So called good-guy _Loki_ broke into my house, indoctrinated me in my sleep to summon an interdimensional monster who looked like Teddy's mom and turned _my_ parents into her slave goo-constructs. She put on a reality filter so that no one even saw what we were running away _from_ , making it seem like we were just having a coming-of-age crisis no one took seriously. To make matters worse, almost everyone we picked up along the way to help turned out to be some shade of a selfish asshole who only cared about how _our_ crisis could help _them_ and what they _couldn't keep in their goddamn pants_!"  
  
The way she blinked, brows raised, was almost amusing, if Billy were in any better a mood. As he wasn't, he tried instead to regain his composure. Reminding himself that was over, he dragged his hands over his face, and took two stabilizing breathes before continuing.  
"What I'm _trying_ to say... being on a team isn't what puts us in danger. _Drawing breath_ is. From the day we were born, Ted and I both have had enormous bullseyes on our backs, simply for being who and what we are. I'll tell you what being on a team _does_ do for us --"  
  
She took the bait of him pausing and crossed her arms, head tilted in a questioning manner. He breathed deeply again before nodding.  
  
"It means that when Teddy's distant relatives eventually came and kidnapped us, we had Pod tracking us across the galaxy, and you guys jumping on a space-jet to get us back. It means that-- that when I _wasn't me_ , you didn't let me do anything I'd regret. And then the future Avengers came to _kill me_ \-- but I had you guys watching my back, keeping me _alive_ long enough for Ted to snap me out of it. Sure, being on a team means we fight a lot of battles we might not have had to on our own. But the fights we can't avoid? We don't fight them alone, alongside a team we can trust because they all _want_ to be here, not... _strays_ we picked up. Aaaaaand that finally brings me to the second thing you weren't wrong about." The change in tone, suddenly almost light, along with the hands back in his pockets and the weight shifting, everything about that pause in Billy's monologue was awkward, and it took Melissa a moment to realize he was waiting for a response.   
  
"Being?"  
  
The look he gave her was clear and determined. Despite all he said, there was a smile on his lips - weary, yet proud, and with just a touch of stubborn brattiness.   
" _We_ _chose_ to join. You don't get to take that away from us."  
  
She wanted to argue, the words stinging her tongue, but she knew full well it was a lost battle. She wasn't going to take the blame for this, he wasn't going to let her - simply because, to Billy, there was no blame to go around. It took her another moment, but finally she gave up, a hand on her hip and a smile on her lips.  
"So it would seem, yes."  
  
"You can ask Teddy if you don't believe me, but he'll probably just tell you the same, though in not as many words."  
  
"I'll take your word for it," she replied and nodded to herself. There wasn't much else to say, however, and having spent himself saying as much as he did, Billy began fidgeting.  
  
"So, uh... am I dismissed? Or is there more?"  
  
"Unless you have anything else to add...?"  
  
"No, but I _do_ have a hand-in to finish, hopefully before my boyfriend comes back..."  
  
"By all means, don't let me stop you."  
  
Billy nodded, offered half a wave, and jogged back to his room. Melissa watched him until he disappeared from sight, and then pondered their conversation which went quite unlike what she had expected. It was a peculiar feeling, having the weight forced off her shoulders in that manner, but, she concluded, eyes closed and an exasperated smile on her lips - it wasn't a bad one. If anything, it was further proof that they did put together the best team they could.


End file.
